This document discusses several topics related to brain function and neuroscience. It begins by describing arousal and attention, noting that arousal requires the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) within the brainstem and projections to the thalamus. It then discusses emotion, noting that basic drives are centered in the limbic system while distinctly human emotions are represented in the cortex. Finally, it provides information on frontal lobe function, language, memory, and the limbic system.

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Arousal and Attention
Arousal is the establishment and maintenance of an awake state.
It appears to require at least three brain regions:
Within the brainstem: the ascending reticular activating system
(ARAS). The ARAS projects to the intralaminar nuclei of the
thalamus, and these nuclei in turn project to the cortex.
During wakefulness, the ARAS stimulates the thalamic intralaminar
nuclei, which in turn coordinate the oscillations of different cortical
regions. The greater the synchronization, the higher the level of
wakefulness.
The absence of arousal produces stupor and coma.
In general, small discrete lesions of the ARAS can produce a stuporous
state, whereas at the hemispheric level, large bilateral lesions are required
to cause the same depression in alertness.
N.B: The vegetative state persists in extensive bilateral cortical
dysfunction i.e. Sleep-wake cycles may be preserved, and the eyes may
appear to gaze; but the external world does not register and no evidence of
conscious thought exists. This condition represents the expression of the
isolated actions of the ARAS and the thalamus.
The maintenance of attention requires an intact right frontal lobe.
Healthy persons can usually maintain performance of such a task for
several minutes, but in patients with right frontal lobe dysfunction, this
capacity is severely curtailed.
One widely diagnosed disorder of attention is (ADHD). No pathological
findings have been consistently associated with this disorder.
Functional neuroimaging studies, however, have variously documented
either frontal lobe or right hemisphere hypometabolism in patients
with ADHD, compared with normal controls. These findings strengthen
the notion that the right frontal lobe is essential to the maintenance of
attention.
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2. Emotion
Emotion derives from basic drives, such as feeding, sex, reproduction,
pleasure, pain, fear, and aggression, which all animals share. These
drives appears to be centered in the limbic system.
Distinctly, human emotions, such as affection, pride, guilt, pity, envy,
and resentment, are largely learned and most likely are represented in
the cortex.
The regulation of drives requires an intact frontal cortex.
Several studies suggested that within the cortex exists a hemispheric
dichotomy of emotional representation.
The left hemisphere houses the analytical mind but may have a limited
emotional repertoire. The right hemisphere appears dominant for affect,
socialization, and body image.
Damage to the left hemisphere produces intellectual disorder and loss of
the narrative aspect of dreams. Damage to the right hemisphere produces
affective disorders, loss of the visual aspects of dreams, and a failure to
respond to humor, and connotations. Hemisensory changes representing
conversion disorders have been repeatedly noted to involve the left half
of the body more often than the right, an observation that suggests an
origin in the right hemisphere.
Within the hemispheres, the temporal and frontal lobes play a prominent
role in emotion.
The temporal lobe exhibits a high frequency of epileptic foci. Patients
with temporal lobe seizures (TLE) often manifest bizarre behavior
without the classic grand mal shaking movements caused by seizures in
the motor cortex.
A proposed TLE personality is characterized by hyposexuality,
emotional intensity, and a perseverative approach to interactions, termed
viscosity.

3. Patients with left TLE may generate references to personal destiny and
philosophical themes and display a humorless approach to life. In
contrast, patients with right TLE may display excessive emotionality,
ranging from elation to sadness.
The inverse of a TLE personality appears in persons with bilateral injury
to the temporal lobes after head trauma, cardiac arrest, herpes simplex
encephalitis, or Pick's disease. This lesion resembles the one described
in the Kluver-Bucy syndrome. Behavior in this syndrome is
characterized by hypersexuality, placidity, a tendency to explore the
environment with the mouth, inability to recognize the emotional
significance of visual stimuli, and constantly shifting attention, called
hypermetamorphosis.
The prefrontal cortices influence mood in a complementary way:
Whereas activation of the left prefrontal cortex appears to lift the mood,
activation of the right prefrontal cortex causes depression.
A lesion to the left prefrontal area abolishes the normal mood-elevating
influences and produces depression.
Moreover, Functional neuroimaging documented left prefrontal
hypoperfusion during depressive states, which normalized after the
depression was treated successfully.
In contrast, a lesion to the right prefrontal area may produce laughter,
euphoria, and witzelsucht, a tendency to joke and make puns.

4. Frontal Lobe Function
The frontal lobe is the region that determines how the brain acts on its
knowledge.
The massive size of the frontal lobes is the main feature that
distinguishes the human brain from other primates and that lends it uniquely
human qualities.
There are four subdivisions of the frontal lobes:
• The first three: (the motor strip, the supplemental motor area,
and Broca's area) are concerned with the motor system and language.
• The fourth: is the prefrontal cortex which contains three regions
in which lesions produce distinct syndromes: the orbitofrontal, the
dorsolateral, and the medial.
Dye-tracing studies have defined dense reciprocal connections between
the prefrontal cortex and all other brain regions. Indeed, frontal lobe injury
usually impairs the executive functions: motivation, attention, and
sequencing of actions. However, bilateral lesions of the frontal lobes are
characterized by changes in personality "how persons interact with the
world".
The frontal lobe syndrome:
• most commonly produced by trauma, infarcts, tumors, lobotomy,
multiple sclerosis, or Pick's disease.
• consists of slowed thinking, poor judgment, decreased curiosity,
social withdrawal, and irritability.
• Patients typically display apathetic indifference to experience that
can progress to impulsive disinhibition.
• Unilateral frontal lobe lesions may be largely unnoticed because
the intact lobe can compensate with high efficiency.
Frontal lobe dysfunction may be difficult to detect by means of highly
structured, formal neuropsychological tests. I.Q. " Adult Intelligence Scale-
Revised (WAIS-R)" may be normal, and neuroimaging studies have shown
that the IQ seems to require mostly parietal lobe activation. In contrast,

5. frontal lobe pathology may become apparent only under unstructured,
stressful, real-life situations.
Some studies revealed the clearest known association of higher cortical
functional lateralization with the subjects' dominant hand and suggested a
remarkable complexity of functional localization within the prefrontal
cortex. These studies may also help understand of psychiatric diseases in
which prefrontal pathology has been postulated, such as schizophrenia and
mood disorders.
The heavy innervation of the frontal lobes by dopamine-containing
nerve fibers is of interest because of the action of antipsychotics. At the
clinical level, antipsychotics may help to organize the rambling associations
of a patient with schizophrenia. At the neurochemical level, most typical
antipsychotics block the actions of dopamine at the dopamine D2 receptors.
The frontal lobes, therefore, may be a major therapeutic site of action for
antipsychotic medications.

6. Language
The clearest known example of hemispheric lateralization is the
localization of language functions to the left hemisphere.
Prosody, the emotional and affective components of language, or "body
language" appears to be localized in a mirror set of brain units in the right
hemisphere.
Among the earliest models of cortical localization of function were
Broca's 1865 description of a loss of fluent speech caused by a lesion in the
left inferior frontal lobe and Wernicke's 1874 localization of language
comprehension to the left superior temporal lobe.
In most persons, the hemisphere dominant for language also directs the
dominant hand. Ninety percent of the population is right-handed, and 99
percent of right-handers have left hemispheric dominance for language. Of
the 10 percent who are left-handers, 67 percent also have left hemispheric
language dominance.
Language comprehension is processed at three levels:
First, in phonological processing, individual sounds are recognized in
the inferior gyrus of the frontal lobes. Phonological processing improves if
lip reading is allowed, if speech is slowed, or if contextual clues are
provided.
Second, lexical processing matches the phonological input with
recognized words or sounds in the individual's memory. Lexical processing
determines whether a sound is a word or not. Recent evidence has localized
lexical processing to the left temporal lobe.
Third, semantic processing connects the words to their meaning.
Semantic processing activates the middle and superior gyri of the left
temporal lobe, whereas the representation of the conceptual content of words
is widely distributed in the cortex.
Language production proceeds in the opposite direction, from the
cortical semantic representations through the left temporal lexical nodes to

7. either the oromotor phonological processing area (for speech) or the
graphomotor system (for writing).
Developmental dyslexia is defined as an unexpected difficulty with
learning in the context of adequate intelligence, motivation, and education.
Whereas speech consists of the logical combination of 44 basic
phonemes of sounds, reading requires a broader set of brain functions and,
thus, is more susceptible to disruption.
The awareness of specific phonemes develops about the age of 4 to 6
years which is prerequisite to acquisition of reading skills. Inability to
recognize distinct phonemes is the best predictor of a reading disability.
Functional neuroimaging studies have localized the identification of
letters to the occipital lobe adjacent to the primary visual cortex.
Phonological processing occurs in the inferior frontal lobe, and semantic
processing requires the superior and middle gyri of the left temporal lobe. A
recent finding of uncertain significance is that phonological processing in
men activates only the left inferior frontal gyrus, whereas phonological
processing in women activates the inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally.
In children, developmental nonverbal learning disorder results from
right hemisphere dysfunction. It is characterized by poor fine-motor control
in the left hand, deficits in visuoperceptual organization, problems with
mathematics, and incomplete or disturbed socialization.
Patients with nonfluent aphasia, who cannot complete a simple sentence,
may be able to sing an entire song, apparently because many aspects of
music production are localized to the right hemisphere.

8. Limbic System Function
The limbic system was delineated by James Papez in 1937.
The Papez circuit consists of the hippocampus, the fornix, the mamillary
bodies, the anterior nucleus of the thalamus, and the cingulate gyrus. The
limbic system were subsequently expanded to include the amygdala, septum,
basal forebrain, nucleus accumbens, and orbitofrontal cortex.
The amygdala ia a critically important gate through which internal and
external stimuli are integrated. Information from the primary senses is
interwoven with internal drives, such as hunger and thirst, to assign
emotional significance to sensory experiences. The amygdala may mediate
learned fear responses, such as anxiety and panic, and may direct the
expression of certain emotions by producing a particular affect.
Damage to the amygdala ablates the ability to distinguish fear and anger
in other persons' voices and facial expressions.
Pathways from the sensory thalamic relay stations separately send sensory
data to the amygdala and the cortex, but the subsequent effect of the
amygdala on the cortex is the more potent of the two reciprocal connections.
So, the limbic system appears to house the emotional association areas,
which direct the hypothalamus to express the motor and endocrine
components of the emotional state.
Fear and Aggression
Electrical stimulation of the limbic system produces rage reactions (e.g.,
growling, spitting, arching of the back). Whether the animal flees or attacks
depends on the intensity of the stimulation.
Limbic System and Schizophrenia
Eugen Bleuler's well-known four As of schizophrenia "affect,
associations, ambivalence, and autism" refer to brain functions served by
limbic structures.

9. Several studies found a reduction in the brain weight of the gray matter
but not of the white matter in persons with schizophrenia.
In pathological as well as MRI reports, persons with schizophrenia may
have reduced volume of the hippocampus, amygdala, and parahippocampal
gyrus.
Schizophrenia may be a late sequela of a temporal epileptic focus, with
some studies reporting an association in 7 percent of patients with TLE.
Neuroimaging studies demonstrated decreased activation of the frontal
lobes in many patients with schizophrenia.
Neuropathological studies showed a decreased density of neuropil, the
intertwined axons and dendrites of the neurons, in the frontal lobes of these
patients.
One hypothesis of the appearance of schizophrenia in the late teenage
years is that excessive adolescent synaptic pruning occurs and results in too
little frontolimbic activity. Some experts have suggested that
hypometabolism and paucity of interneuronal connections in the prefrontal
cortex may reflect inefficiencies in working memory leading to loosening of
associations that characterizes schizophrenia.
Other neurodevelopmental surveys found an increased incidence of subtle
neurological abnormalities before the appearance of the thought disorder in
persons with schizophrenia.
In one intriguing study, (PET) scanning was used to identify the brain
regions that are activated when a person hears spoken language.
A consistent set of cortical and subcortical structures demonstrated
increased metabolism when speech was processed. During the
hallucinations, the same cortical and subcortical structures were activated as
were activated by the actual sounds, including the primary auditory cortex.
This study raises the questions of what brain structure is activating the
hallucinations and by what mechanism do neuroleptics suppress the
hallucinations.

10. Memory
The clinical assessment of memory should test three periods, which have
distinct anatomical correlates.
Immediate memory "functions over a period of seconds":
It is the ability to follow a train of thought. This ability has been divided
into phonological and visuospatial components which are localized to
the left and right hemispheres, respectively.
Recent memory applies on the scale of minutes to days.
Remote memory encompasses months to years.
A related concept, incorporating immediate and recent memory, is
working memory.
Working memory: is the ability to store information for several
seconds, whereas other related cognitive operations take place on this
information.
Recent studies have shown that single neurons in the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex record features necessary for working memory. Some
neurons fire rapidly for an item that is eagerly awaited, but may cease
firing if hopes are dashed unexpectedly. The encoding of the emotional
value of an item contained in the working memory may be of great
usefulness in determining goal-directed behavior.
Some researchers localize working memory predominantly to the left
frontal cortex. However, bilateral prefrontal cortex lesions are required
for severe impairment of working memory.
Other types of memory have been described: episodic, semantic, and
procedural

11. Table 3.1-4 Categories of Memory
Memory Major Length of Type of Examples
System Anatomical Storage of Awareness
Structures Memory
Episodic Medial temporal Minutes to Explicit, Remembering a short
memory lobes, anterior years declarative story, what you had for
thalamic nucleus, dinner last night
mamillary body,
fornix, prefrontal
cortex
Semantic Inferolateral Minutes to Explicit, Knowing who was the
memory temporal lobes years declarative first president of the
Egypt or the color of a
lion
Procedural Basal ganglia, Minutes to Explicit or Driving a car with a
memory cerebellum, years implicit, standard transmission
supplementary nondeclarative (explicit) and learning
motor area the sequence of
numbers on a touch tone
phone without trying
(implicit)
Three brain structures are critical to the formation of memories: the
medial temporal lobe, certain diencephalic nuclei, and the basal
forebrain.
The medial temporal lobe houses the hippocampus which is a
significant site for formation and storage of immediate and recent
memories.
The amygdala is adjacent to the hippocampus. The amygdala rates the
emotional importance of an experience and to activate the level of
hippocampal activity accordingly. Thus, an emotionally intense
experience is indelibly etched in memory, but indifferent stimuli are
quickly disregarded.
Animal studies have defined a hippocampal place code, a pattern of
cellular activation in the hippocampus that corresponds to the animal's
location in space. When the animal is introduced to a novel environment,
the hippocampus is activated. As the animal explores, the firing of
certain hippocampal regions begins to correspond to specific locations in
the environment. In about 1 hour, a highly detailed internal

12. representation of the external space (a cognitive map) appears in the
form of specific firing patterns of the hippocampal cells. If the animal is
removed from the environment for several days and then returned, the
previously registered hippocampal place code is immediately
reactivated.
Data from targeted genetic mutations in mice have implicated both the
N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptors and the calcium-
calmodulin kinase II (CaMKII) in the proper formation of hippocampal
place fields.
Although no data yet support the notion, it is conceivable that the
hippocampal cognitive map is inappropriately reactivated during a deja
vu experience.
The declarative or factual memory may be separate within the brain
from procedural or skill-related memory. A complementary deficit in
procedural memory with preservation of declarative memory may be
seen in persons with Parkinson's disease, in whom dopaminergic
neurons of the nigrostriatal tract degenerate which can be ameliorated
with levodopa.
Lesional studies have also suggested a mild lateralization of
hippocampal function in which the left hippocampus is more efficient at
verbal memories and the right hippocampus in the nonverbal memories.
Medical causes of amnesia include alcoholism, seizures, migraine,
drugs, vitamin deficiencies, trauma, strokes, tumors, infections, and
degenerative diseases.
The motor system within the cortex receives directives from the
association areas. The performance of a novel act requires constant
feedback from the sensory and association areas for completion.
Memorized motor acts initially require activation of the medial temporal
lobe. However, the performance of ever-larger segments of an act
necessary to achieve a goal become encoded within discrete areas of the
premotor and parietal cortices, particularly the left parietal cortex, with
the result that a much more limited activation of the cortex is seen

13. during highly skilled acts, and the medial temporal lobe is bypassed.
This process is called the corticalization of motor commands.
Within the diencephalon, the dorsal medial nucleus of the thalamus and
the mamillary bodies appear necessary for memory formation. These
two structures are damaged in thiamine deficiency states usually seen in
chronic alcoholics, and their inactivation is associated with Korsakoff's
syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by severe inability to form
new memories and to recall remote memories.
The most common clinical disorder of memory is Alzheimer's disease
which characterized pathologically by the degeneration of neurons and
their replacement by senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.
Initially, the parietal and temporal lobes are affected, with relative
sparing of the frontal lobes leading to early loss of memory, which is a
temporal lobe function and syntactical language comprehension and
visuospatial organization, functions that rely on the parietal lobe. In
contrast, personality changes, which reflect frontal lobe function, are
relatively late consequences of Alzheimer's disease.
In contrast, Pick's disease, first affects the frontal lobes while sparing
the temporal and parietal lobes. Disinhibition and impaired language
expression, which are signs of frontal dysfunction, appear early, with
relatively preserved language comprehension and memory.
Memory loss can also result from disorders of the subcortical gray
matter structures, specifically the basal ganglia and the brainstem nuclei,
from disease of the white matter, or from disorders that affect both.

14. Development
The nervous system is divided into the central and peripheral nervous
systems (CNS and PNS). The CNS consists of the brain and spinal cord;
the PNS refers to all the sensory, motor, and autonomic fibers and ganglia
outside the CNS.
During development, both divisions arise from a common precursor, the
neural tube, which in turn is formed through folding of the neural plate, a
specialization of the ectoderm, the outermost of the three layers of the
primitive embryo.
Neuronal Migration and Connections
The life cycle of a neuron consists of:
• cell birth and migration to the adult position
• extension of an axon & elaboration of dendrites
• synaptogenesis
• finally, the onset of chemical neurotransmission.
Individual neurons are born in proliferative zones generally located
along the inner surface of the neural tube:
At the peak of neuronal proliferation in the middle of the second
trimester, 250,000 neurons are born each minute.
Postmitotic neurons migrate to their adult locations in the cortex,
guided by radially oriented astrocytic glial fibers.
Glial-guided neuronal migration in the cerebral cortex occupies
much of the first 6 months of gestation.
Neuronal migration errors may occur in which neurons fail to
reach the cortex and instead reside in ectopic positions. These
neurons is called a heterotopia.
Neuronal heterotopias may cause epilepsy and are highly
associated with mental retardation.
Recently, heterotopic neurons within the frontal lobe play a
causal role in some cases of schizophrenia.

15. Neuroscientists are interested in the effect of experience on the
formation of brain circuitry in the first years of life:
The impact of early sensory experience is clear on the wiring of
cortical sensory processing areas. Similarly, early movement patterns
reinforce neural connections in the supplemental motor area that drive
specific motor acts.
Neurons rapidly form a fivefold excess of synaptic connections; then,
through a darwinian process of elimination, only those synapses that
serve a relevant function persist, a process that reinforces repeatedly
activated neural circuits.
One molecular component which mediates synaptic reinforcement is
the postsynaptic NMDA glutamate receptor.
This receptor allows the influx of calcium ions only when activated
by glutamate at the same time of the membrane depolarization. Thus,
glutamate binding without membrane depolarization or membrane
depolarization without glutamate binding fails to trigger calcium
influx.
Calcium is a crucial intracellular messenger that initiates a cascade of
events, including gene regulation and the release of trophic factors that
strengthen synaptic connections.
Adult Neurogenesis
A remarkable recent discovery showed that new neurons can be
generated in certain brain regions (particularly the dentate gyrus of the
hippocampus) in adult animals, including humans.
Neurological Basis of Development Theories
In the realm of emotion, early childhood experiences were
suspected to be at the root of psychopathology since the earliest
theories of Sigmund Freud.
Freud's psychoanalytic method aimed at tracing the threads of a
patient's earliest childhood memories.
Franz Alexander added the goal of allowing the patient to relive
them in a less pathological environment, a process known as a
corrective emotional experience.

16. Although neuroscientists have no data demonstrating that this
method operates at the level of neurons, results reveal a profound
effect of early caregivers on an adult individual's emotional
repertoire.
If a baby's emotional expressions are reciprocated in a consistent
and sensitive manner, certain emotional circuits are reinforced. These
circuits include the limbic system, in particular, the amygdala, which
serves as a gate to the hippocampal memory circuits for emotional
stimuli.
It is reasonable to assume that the reactions of caregivers during a
child's first 2 years of life are eventually internalized as distinct neural
circuits, which may be only incompletely modified through
subsequent experience.
For example, axonal connections between the prefrontal cortex and
the limbic system, which modulate basic drives, are established
between the ages of 10 and 18 months. Recent work suggests that a
terrifying experiences in infancy may flood the amygdala and drive
memory circuits to be specifically alert to threatening stimuli, at the
expense of circuits for language and other academic skills.
Thus, infants raised in a chaotic and frightening home may be
neurologically disadvantaged for the acquisition of complex cognitive
skills in school.
An adult similar correlate is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in
which persons exposed to an intense trauma involving death or injury may
have feelings of fear and helplessness for years after the event:
o A PET scanning study of patients with PTSD revealed abnormally
high activity in the right amygdala while the patients were reliving
their traumatic memories.
o The researchers hypothesized that the stressful hormonal milieu
present during the registration of the memories may serve to burn the
memories into the brain and to prevent their erasure by the usual
memory modulation circuits. As a result, the traumatic memories led
to a state of constant vigilance, even in safe, familiar settings.

17. Workers in mathematics document the organizing effects of early
experiences on internal representations of the external world:
• Since Pythagoras, music has been considered a branch of
mathematics. Recent studies have shown that children given 8 months
of intensive classical music lessons during preschool years had
significantly better spatial and mathematical reasoning in school than
a control group.
• So, early exposure to music may be ideal preparation for later
acquisition of complex mathematical and engineering skills.
These observations suggest a neurological basis for the developmental
theories of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Margaret Mahler, John Bowlby,
Freud, and others.
Erikson's epigenetic theory states that normal adult behavior results from
the successful, sequential completion of each of several infantile and
childhood stages. According to the epigenetic model, failure to complete an
early stage leads to subsequent physical, cognitive, social, or emotional
maladjustment.
Finally, these experimental data suggest that early experience primes the
basic circuitry for language, emotions, and other advanced behaviors.
These findings support the vital need for adequate public financing of
Early Intervention and Head Start programs, programs that may be the
most cost-effective means of improving persons' mental health.